


he was a punk AND did ballet

by sweetredpeppers



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura and Shiro are beautiful and perfect at everything, Ballet Studio AU, Explicit Language, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith is bad at ballet, Lance is a dorky pianist, M/M, Slow Burn, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, everyone is having a bit of a hard time with life and going through big discoveries, multiple POVs, shiro and allura are FWB and its slowly killing Shiro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 07:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10826352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetredpeppers/pseuds/sweetredpeppers
Summary: Keith doesn't know what he's doing with his life, but it now includes ballet. And the frustrating boy who sometimes plays piano accompaniment at Allura's studio. Shiro and Allura are in their own tangled mess of a friendship, Hunk is questioning his goals in life, and Pidge is crumbling under pressure from every angle.(Rating subject to change! I really haven't decided how spicy things are going to get. Tags will be edited accordingly in the future.)





	1. Enter Keith

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not super sure where this fic is going but I'm a little obsessed with it. Also, no one is really helping me edit or anything so if you see any gross typos or something feel free to point them out!!
> 
> Disclaimer: I know Allura seems a little harsh. That won't change per se, but Keith will get to know and understand her better.

 

Keith tried to slip in as quietly as possible, but no. That just couldn’t happen could it.

“New boy! You’re 20 minutes late!” Shouted the studio owner, who was unsurprisingly the head ballet instructor of the small business as well. “If you can’t bother coming in on time, you can do barre for the rest of class!”

He sighed. His bike had broken down. Again. So he had to take the bus, knowing just how reliable that was. He set his bag down in the corner and tossed his jacket on top. There was already someone at the barre, so he spaced himself to account for it and slipped his shoes on. The other guy there was kind of big to be in ballet, but Keith figured that if he really wanted to dance it wouldn’t get in the way. After all, the art is about passion and dedication more than a classical image. Anorexic prima ballerinas were a thing of the past. Or Russia.

“Keith?” The guy was looking – squinting – at him.

“Yes?” Keith really didn’t know where he would’ve met this guy… unless… “Oh wait, Hunk? I thought you went into college football?” Hunk had been the star lineman at Keith’s high school. He could block like no other and was always unusually nimble.

“Yeah, no, I did! I started taking ballet to sharpen my coordination! Came in a few days late, but here I am.” He had to have one of the most genuine smiles Keith had ever seen. He hadn’t been able to look past the jersey in high school, he guessed. “All the pros do it nowadays.”

Well, that’s something he didn’t know. "Why are you at the barre?”

“Well, I just li-“

“Oh _I’m sorry_ , did you think I was sending you back there to have social hour with one of my punctual students?” The instructor’s extremely vague accent only made her jab more irritating.

“No, Miss Allura. I’m _very_ sorry for disrupting class,” Keith said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, you’re beyond that now. I have half a mind to kick you out of my studio because you obviously don’t care much about being here. What, was tuition not too much of an incentive for you, huh?”

“Allura,” A small voice croaked.

Keith smoldered as she continued. “You know what, one more bad move and you’re gone, no refund. Got that?”

“Allura,” the whisper echoed in the room in the angry silence that followed Allura’s threat. The pianist fell off of his stool clutching his heart.

“Oh my god, Coran! Someone, call an ambulance!”

 

So, Keith called. Coran fainted for seemingly no reason. When the ambulance arrived, the nurses said Coran should be absolutely fine after a short time at the hospital. Allura mumbled with them about cholesterol and saturated fats and Keith learned that the pianist was her adoptive father when she said yes, she was family.

He silently wished he could afford to call an ambulance, for anything. The Alteas must have some kind of money – old money, since he doubted the studio brought in much more than to break even with utilities and upkeep.

“Yeah, apparently some bad stuff went down with her parents when she was really young. Coran was a close family friend who absolutely adored her so the situation didn’t turn out too bad I’d say,” Hunk explained between bites of granola bar.

“Must be nice to have someone that might as well be your parent after you lost the only ones you had…” Keith wrapped his jacket tighter around himself. Sitting on the steps by the front door was much colder than inside the studio. Fall was coming.

“I detect some angst there, buddy.” Keith was ready to snap back at his new ( _old?_ ) friend but Hunk wasn’t sneering or anything. He looked worried if anything.

“Nothing, was thinking out loud,” Kieth muttered and got up to go inside.

 

The whole class was sitting on the floor, not really sure if they should go home or something. Allura had opted to ride with Coran to the hospital and told everyone to stay put.

“During this class on my property, I am responsible for the well-being of minors. None of you are leaving until class is officially over.” Several students – namely Keith and Hunk – were very against this, seeing as they had already _graduated_ , but Allura insisted that they had to protect the younger dancers from menacing suburban criminals.

Once the ambulance was safely out of sight, a kid jumped up and headed for the door.

“Well, see you guys later. I have stuff to do.” Pidge, the oldest of the school-age kids there, didn’t give a single fuck. Hunk protested but it wasn’t him who stopped her from leaving, it was the tall, very handsome man who gently opened the door and glided into the room. Pidge whipped around and whistled, feigning complete innocence.

Turned out, this stupidly attractive man was Shiro, the other ballet instructor. His rich black hair was in a short mop on the top of his head, sides shaved close, a more and more popular style these days. He looked as though he had run right out of a comfy day in bed, wearing sweats and a tight t-shirt that looked so worn it could’ve been his favorite when he was Keith’s age.

“Hey guys, Allura called me to tell me what happened and I rushed right over! I’m going to teach for the rest of the day, okay? Let’s start with some barre, I’m sure your muscles got all tightened up again while waiting.” And so the man pulled up the legs of his sweats and slipped on a very dirty, threadbare pair of shoes.

The class started off dull since no one was able to play any arrangements. And, as most dancers would say, ballet without good music just feels wrong.

Thankfully Shiro let Keith dance with the rest of the class, unaware of his trespasses. Barre went fine, Keith knew what to do at barre. He grew up with various girls who danced. Tendus, rond de jambs, and relevés: the words and movements were all familiar and, to be blunt, quite easy. And the lack of music was disappointing, but not ruinous.

But floorwork? He was terrified. Shiro went over combination after combination, explaining less and less as he went. He was lapsing into abstract hand movements like they were the severed feet of some clumsy, invisible body. Keith started straight up _sweating_ when students around him nodded like they understood.

He stood in the back. He tried his best to imitate the teacher, but being in the back is great for hiding, not seeing. He picked up what he could, which was more than he thought, but he was struggling. It was humiliating. It wasn’t as if anyone else was watching, that is until Shiro came around to check on everyone’s technique.

Frankly, Kieth hadn’t gotten that last combination so well so when Shiro got to him his racing heart decided to do nothing rather than flounder about.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t get the exercise?” Keith winced but then realized this wasn’t Allura. Shiro’s tone was far from angry. In fact, he wore upturned eyebrows and a concerned frown.

“A-actually…” Keith hated this, but he wouldn’t be disrespectful to the man who so far was exceptionally kind. “Yeah, I didn’t really get it…”

“Oh, I’m sorry if you couldn’t see me or something, let’s go over it!” Shiro was so enthusiastic, he began explaining the whole thing over again right away.

“No, I’m just… new” Keith interrupted, blushing hard. Several students had stopped practicing to watch the interaction. Shiro was watching. Hunk was watching. So many eyes, Keith was crumbling under the pressure.

 “Oh god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even notice! I haven’t been teaching much lately and I never had a chance to talk to Allura before coming in, you know newbies get to stand in the front right?” Shiro rambled, looking almost as embarrassed as Keith felt.

Apparently, ‘newbies’ had quite a few benefits. If they showed up to class early an instructor would go over material with them. They could schedule private lessons for a drastically reduced price point. Keith didn’t feel so hopeless after all.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Keith had class three days a week. Last Monday had been his first time, a miserable time. This Monday, today, was going marginally better. But on Wednesday, he fully intended to take advantage of his ‘newbie’ benefits.

 

* * *

 

 

He arrived so early. _So early_. In fact, no one was even at the studio yet and the door had yet to be unlocked. Keith sighed. He had thought that if he showed up even earlier than expected, he could practice more. _Well, that was a stupid assumption. It’s not like Shiro or Allura live here or anything, they have lives too._

But the studio was nice enough to live in, if someone wanted to. Was that legal? It attempted to look like a quaint wooden house in between the strip malls and offices. The wooden walls were detailed plastic and the second floor with an oval window was just a shallow attic, but it passed if you didn’t look too close. And it was clean inside and out. Even the lettering on the front was in neat script – _Lion Academy_ – with an emblem of a powerful lioness mid-leap.

It had a tiny kitchen and a full bath, revealing that it at one point might’ve been a house, but the rest of the building had been gutted to form two studios, one large and one small. The real small kiddos danced in the smaller one, making up a majority of the dance studio’s clientele. There was a different group in that room every day of the week while the class Keith was in met often and with the same people over and over.

He knew other large classes were held, his was only an hour and a half of the day, but he didn’t really know what they were. He had only seen the ballet class advertised on the flyer in front of his apartment and signed up over the phone.

A boy climbing the steps he was sitting on interrupted his thoughts.

He wasn’t a boy as much as he was a shadow. He stood, head directly blocking the sun in an eclipse. The halo of light, its stark contrast against his silhouette made it hard for Keith to see. And then he moved out of the way and absolutely absorbed the golden light of the slowly setting star.

“Who the fuck are you?” He was tan and slim and apparently _really_ rude.

“Excuse me?”

“Who. The fuck. Are you.” He leaned in on every pause, scrutinizing Keith. “Loiter somewhere else, will you?

“No?” Anger rose in Keith’s throat. “I’m a student here and I’m waiting for the teacher to arrive and you aren’t him so, who the fuck are _you_?”

“O-oh,” The boy stuttered, obviously a little taken aback. He cleared his throat and cocked an eyebrow. “I’m only the single greatest pianist on this side of the city.” His smile was too wide and too white. Tacky as hell.

Keith snorted, “Then why weren’t you here _before_ our guy had a heart attack”

He sputtered, “Because I was booked, that’s why!” He fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, because somehow this asshole was trusted with a spare.

Keith was still sitting, scowling on the steps but turned when he didn’t hear the door close.

“You coming in?” The boy was holding the door open, confused look on his face.

 _Well, I guess it’s better than sitting out here_. “Yeah sure.” So he dusted himself off and shouldered his bag.

“The name’s Lance by the way,” Lance introduced himself. “Want me to give you some atmosphere to warm up to?”

For as bad as a first impression this guy made, he was actually being less than horrible now that he knew Keith wasn’t a bum. _Maybe it’s the hair…_ “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

 “You’re new, aren’t you?” Lance was fiddling with the baby grand in the corner, getting a sense for it, and watching Keith get ready for a little barre.

Keith ignored him. But yeah, he had no clue what to do without Shiro here. Knowing the basic movements didn’t mean he could do them correctly alone.

“Until someone gets here, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to just stretch.”

“Don’t tell me what to do” But Keith sat on the laminate wood floor in straddle anyway.

“Wha- I’m just trying to be helpful!”

“Well, stop it. I know what I’m doing” _Liar._

And suddenly Lance was sitting next to him, tossing his small bag aside and grinning. This smile wasn’t nearly as grating. “Your form is horrible.” His cologne softly spread in the air. It was very… sea-breeze and cracked rosemary. Clean yet energetic.

Keith scowled and stared at his legs, looking fine beneath the windbreaker he hadn’t yet discarded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go play your piano.”

“One, that’s because you’re wearing way too much to see the lines of your body.” He yanked on the loose material around Keith’s ankle to make a point. The thin joint was swamped. “Two, not my piano but I wish.”

Keith took off his pants, revealing the tight black leggings beneath – tight enough that you could see every muscle, every movement. Oh, the horrors of ballet.

“There’re your lines!” Lance laughed and leaned all his weight on Keith’s knees. He swore he heard a crack. “If you can call the jagged angles of these puppies lines. How long have you been taking again?”

Keith grimaced but managed to creak, “I started last week – first year doing anything remotely like this.”

Lance bounced his weight on his knee and Keith nearly pushed him off. “Wow, a true newbie! I’ve never seen someone start this late! Well, except for sports guys like Hunk.”

Lance helped him through more stretches, some Keith wasn’t aware of, and chatted excitedly about the studio and the instructors. It sounded like he practically grew up here, so Keith had to ask. “Did you take classes her as a kid or something?”

The boy looked disgusted. “Ew no, I tried like once but it went horribly. Sprained four joints. And not my own. No, Hunk and I grew up with Pidge yapping about this place constantly. I’ve been to more dance recitals than most of the parents.”

And he grew up helping her stretch and practice too. He said he was pretty good at telling people what they were doing wrong and how to fix it, though he couldn’t do it himself. He got good at ballet arrangements as well, so that he could play on her family’s beautiful Steinway grand while Pidge followed his music.

He was a talker, this guy. It was like he hadn’t talked to anyone in years and needed to let out his whole life story, not caring where each tangent led as long as he liked the topic. Keith almost envied his enthusiasm, if it didn’t look so tiring.

“Lance, hey!” They looked up to see Shiro shuffling in, with Pidge right behind. “Guess you still had that key?”

The boy stood, looking so tall from where Keith lay with a knee to his chest. Lance worked here in high school it seemed. Needed money to fuel his and Hunk’s extravagant cooking adventures. And the college tuition that he never ended up needing.

Okay, Keith met this boy thirty minutes ago and knew more about him than anyone in this city knew about Keith himself. It was losing its charm. But Shiro and Pidge looked at him as if this was normal, welcome even.

“Wait, did you go to Garrison High a few blocks over?” Keith suddenly realized that if this Lance grew up with Hunk, that meant they probably went to the same school just a year ago. How did he not at least recognize him?

Lance looked to him, as if just suddenly realizing he was still there. A flush graced his face like talking to Shiro was some act of- oh. OH. That’s cute.

“No, actually. I got into a music school downtown but grew up nearby. Why?”

“Me too.” Smooth. “I mean, I grew up nearby too. Garrison High for me though. I knew Hunk.”

Lance muttered something like, “what a coinkidink,” and turned back to Shiro to jabber until the older man convinced him to play accompaniment to the very small class he taught for Keith.

It went on like that for a month. Allura returned to the studio that same day but it was always Shiro that Keith spent extra time with. He showed up at the right kind of early now, just as Shiro was getting there, and Lance showed up to play for the studio always late enough to make it a distraction. Pidge got there early off and on to work on her own choreography, Keith learned, but didn’t use any inconvenient entrances as tools to be a total jackass.

She was still in high school, but graduating early, and was perhaps the single most talented person he had ever met. She was looking at MIT for college, and not unfoundedly, but also investing time into competitive ballet performance. She never dazzled anyone during class but Keith noticed that her technique was flawless. She probably just didn’t have the energy to give it her all for hours upon hours – she was in every class available _and_ taught some of the preschool courses.

Coran was making a swift recovery, Allura announced, but his joints were stiff. She was making him wait another week to come back in to class, and Lance looked almost guilty as she said it.

Keith hadn’t talked to Lance much since that first day, but he watched. God, it sounded creepy when he said it like that, but he didn’t know what else to call it. Observing?

Well, he’d started just… hanging out in the studio when he didn’t have work. He’d read. Or study. And what better way to distract himself than with those dancing tan fingers and laughing blue eyes.

He just hadn’t known anyone who could play an instrument like that. Lance could hammer or coax the black and white keys into any melody, it seemed. Sometimes he’d yell from the piano for requests. The many young girls requested pop songs Keith didn’t recognize but Lance did. And sometimes Lance would sing along, encouraging the others too until they giggled so hard they couldn’t complete combinations.

Shiro humored Lance usually, and Lance put on the act with the blush and smirk Keith grew used to seeing. But when he forgot his surroundings and showcased his talents during Keith’s class with Allura…

“Heyo, heyo, anybody got a burning desire to hear anything special?”

In that moment, Allura didn’t even pay attention to him. But everyone else knew this game and they were already starting to snicker when some teen screamed out “CAKE BY THE OCEAN” and Keith was surprised he actually knew that one.

It was recent but old enough that Keith thought he heard it at the prom he went to for approximately 15 minutes. He knew it didn’t sound this good then.

Keith and the other students kept on with their turns across the floor. The beat of the song was just perfect and Keith was doing really well for once, but he lost concentration when Lance started into the chorus and his falsetto was just too much.

Everyone simultaneously fell into laughter and Keith saw Pidge collapse onto the floor and that _couldn’t_ have felt good, going down from en pointe like that. Keith was laughing too, more than he ever did when he was watching from the sidelines and maybe it was just the falsetto but it might also have been Allura’s face, just one shade from tomato.

She screamed at Lance to stop, because she started to understand the excessive innuendo and her class was in chaos. She had to physically push him from the bench to get him to quit.

He laughed on the ground, and Shiro wasn’t even there but his cheeks were a beautiful peachy red. Keith let himself think it was beautiful for about five seconds then made a point to forget it ever happened.

 

Allura got everyone under control eventually and made them do barre for the rest of class as punishment. She made the girls keep their pointe shoes on and, another one of the many times he had thought so, Keith was very glad he’s not a girl.

He started packing up like normal, feet and legs aching, but was stopped by a poke at his shoulder.

“How’d you like the performance?” Lance was leaning against the barre, examining his nails with a dismissive look in a show of utter unabashed self-obsession. If everyone else acted like this was a very normal, not ridiculous thing to do, Keith would too.

“How deep in the doghouse are you?” Keith slightly smirked at Lance as he gathered his things. He could go along with this. He could be level-headed and witty.

Lance only grinned wider. “Oh dude, I am _buried_ in the doghouse. RIP me.”

“If you do that around Allura again, I think she might fire you.” And Keith intended to leave the conversation at that and go home because he was _exhausted_ but Lance yelped to wait up and grabbed his backpack from below the piano.

He was back by Keith, moving out the door in a matter of seconds. He clearly didn’t just jump up and down for an hour.

“Actually, that was my last day so it doesn’t matter much. I figured I’d have fun.” Keith involuntarily frowned, like he didn’t know Coran was coming back next week, but he honestly kind of forgot.

“What, you gonna miss me Keithy boy?”

“What? No.” At least Lance remembered his name. And he _would_ miss a guy his age playing pleasant scenery. He, for one, couldn’t let himself ogle Shiro. He just respected him too much. And Hunk was super nice and a rare someone that Keith wouldn’t mind spending more time with but not his type.

Lance? Lance was perfect. Keith wasn’t in danger of catching feelings for someone so obnoxious. He could just look for a few moments when no one else was. Glimpse tan skin beneath a boyish t-shirt, catch the face he made when he _really_ got into the music, like he was… like he was… Fuck. Yeah, Keith would miss the first physically attraction he’d felt in a while, though he hadn’t realized until now just how much he was into him.

Lance was talking to him. Oh god. He’d totally been staring at Lance’s hands for the last few seconds. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.

“W-what?”

“ _I was asking_ if you’d ever want to hang out with me and Hunk. Oh, and the nerd if she ever has time.”

Keith stared into space again but this time to think about the last time he saw people outside of work and class. It had been a while. “Yeah sure, why not.”

“-cuz I just think we probably have a lot in common, growing up around here at the same time and al- oh! You said yes!” Lance grinned and it was blinding. When did his wide smiles stop looking so garish? “So, why don’t you come to my place right now!”

Now that threw him for a loop. “Uhhhh, no offense, but I kind of need to take a shower. And eat. And other necessities.”

“Yeah, and you can do that at my place! I have a shower. And food.” But then he looked as if he were reconsidering that thought. “I _might_ have food.”

Despite not giving him an answer, Keith was following him down the street like he’d already given the affirmative one. “You live alone?”

Lance purred back, “yeah baby, lots of time and space for action.”

Keith didn’t let it get to him, he said similar things to both Shiro and Allura, and not to mention Hunk sometimes too. “Do you say those kinds of things to everyone?”

He didn’t mean for it to sound so judgmental, but Lance didn’t look _that_ upset. “Only to the pretty ones.” Okay, zero upset. His extreme ego was proving more limitless by the word.

The scattered shopping district faded swiftly into suburbs. Going the opposite direction would’ve brought you closer into town, to shitty apartments where the sidewalks were cracked and sometimes didn’t exist at all so you had to walk on the shoulder of the highway. That’s where Keith lived. It’s where he expected Lance to live, since he was apparently alone. What kind of recently graduated kid could afford to live here?

Every house had a front lawn with flowers. Every house was two stories or more with a large fenced in backyard. It was the American dream, modernized. No picket fences and too much modern architecture, but this was where people dreamed of living when they lived somewhere else. Modest looking, but worth more than most people could ever afford. Keith was starting to understand why Lance was so full of himself.

Until they stopped at what was probably the tiniest house in the neighborhood. It was so small and flowering shrubs grew wildly around the yard.

Keith was about to ask about the place but Lance, as usual, offered the conversation unprompted. “This was my abuelita’s house. I moved here from the other side of the Garrison’s school district to be a little closer to downtown, where the music conservatory is.”

So, he wasn’t just some rich kid with his own personal house. “That’s nice. I mean, if you like your grandma.” It did sound nice. Keith heard people growing up complaining constantly about how overbearing their parents were. A grandmother might be welcome relief. Or, he guessed it could be worse. Who's to say.

“Uh, yeah… it was.” Lance stopped bearing his ever present grin as he unlocked the front door and pushed into the house.

Keith started into an apology, feeling horrible for prompting the conversation like that. He hated it when anyone asked about his family. But Lance stopped in the doorway and frowned at him. “I don’t really want to get into it, so let’s just pretend I never brought it up okay?”

That was. Surprisingly mature. But Keith still felt bad.

He kept quiet as Lance jumped back into excited chatter, pouring out all the love he harbored for his home. It _was_ a cute place. Antique, orange tiled floors with popcorn-paint walls. Mismatched rugs and worn couches, an aquarium next to a small tv with wires connecting to multiple game systems. And then the very old piano sitting in what Keith suspected was supposed to be a dining room.

Most of the inhabitants of this neighborhood would probably turn their nose up at this décor.

“This is Zarkon.” Lance pointed to the turtle in the tank. “He’s a mean fucker but it’s not like I can get rid of him. Who’d want him?”

“That’s uh. And interesting name.” Keith dropped his duffel bag next to a couch and peeled off his jacket and sweats.

Lance sprinkled some pellets in Zarkon’s tank. “Yeah, it’s the villain from this game Hunk, Pidge, and I used to play as ki- WHOA THERE sailor, I didn’t think you wanted me that badly.”

Keith scoffed. He was still wearing his loose tank and tights and this was _not_ scandalous. Lance had seen him in these exact clothes the first day they met. His body still betrayed him with a warmth in his cheeks. “Shut up! I thought you said I could use your shower!”

“Yeah, try stripping once you’re in the actual bathroom. It’s this way.”

Lance’s shower was old but clean. He must rub off scum every weak to keep a tub like this from wasting away. Keith hadn’t pegged him as a good housekeeper. The water washed over him, hot and pressurized, the kind of water that really makes you feel clean. His apartment had the water pressure of an old man’s piss. He couldn’t wait to change and feel like a real human again. Change… Wait… _CHANGE._ Fucking of course.

“Hey uh, Lance?”

“What?” He screamed from surprisingly close to the door.

“I don’t have a spare change of clothes. I hate to ask, but can I borrow some?”

Then laughter. “Think you can fit in them shorty?”

He was at most a few inches from Lance’s height. “Ugh. Just bring me some.”

The shirt was fine, if a little roomy, but Lance’s basketball shorts reached below his knees. At least they fit in the waist. Keith thanked Lance’s tight hips and then cursed himself for thinking of Lance’s tight hips.

Lance was in the kitchen. Something smelled surprisingly good and as Lance swiveled Keith saw a delicious looking hodge podge of vegetables and meat in a pan. “Hey boyfriend.” He had the nerve to wink. “You should just leave clothes at my house next time.”

“God, shut up.” Keith sat at the table cramped by the piano across from the kitchen counter. “You’ve never even had anyone over, I bet.”

“I-”

“Hunk and Pidge don’t count.”

Lance sulked over his cooking. When it was done it was _good_.

“Oh my god, Lance. I thought you’d be subsisting on a cup of ramen every few days. You’re a stick. How do you look like that if you cook like this.” He motioned to the huge piles of very good food on the table.

“I’m just genetically engineered for gorgeousness.” It was so natural. Every quip just seemed to come to him without a thought. Maybe it _was_ just how he functioned. Input: normal speech. Output: bad flirting. He honestly wasn’t trying to be a jackass.

As if summoned by the third plate Keith was wondering about, Hunk burst in the front door. “Yo yo yo, what’s cookin bad lookin.”

He sat and immediately started scarfing down the meal. “Oh good, you finally invited Keith,” he said sloppily in between bites.

Finally? Lance coughed obnoxiously and made wide eyes at Hunk.

“I meeeaaaan, nice of you to be here Keith. I’ve been telling Lance you two would get along.” Hunk’s smile, though caked in ground beef, was large and warm just like before. He was a handsome guy, with his soft brown hair, soft brown eyes, soft brown skin. He offset it all with the loudest Hawaiian shirt Keith had ever seen. What a look.

“Uh, yeah. I haven’t really hung out with anyone much since high school. Thanks for the invite.” He surprisingly meant it.

Hunk gulped down a bigger bite than Keith thought a human could fit in its mouth. “You what?”

Lance stared at him like he was crazy. “You haven’t had fun human contact in _a year_?”

Keith suddenly felt very out of place. “Um, yeah. I’m just… Busy.” _Liar_.

Hunk cleared their plates and Lance shouted at Keith, “Oh boy, dude, we are going to make you have the dopest re-entrance to society. You gotta spend the night.”

“Yeah,” Hunk yelled over the running water as he scrubbed the dishes. “We’ll have a wild time of bad horror movies and smash bros. And don’t forget the ladies.”

“Yeah no, Pidge said she couldn’t make it.”

“Oh okay. No ladies then.”

Keith kind of wanted to run away and never speak to these two again. But he also really wanted to stay and see if he could make some real friends. _God, I sound so dumb._

He stayed.


	2. Just Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we hear about Shiro and Allura's situation and Lance believes that he will be nothing more than a great friend for Keith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yaaaaas, incoming Shallura, paired with horrible horrible sadness. Sorry/not sorry. Changing the rating to M instead of T. Probably won't get to explicit?? But we'll see.

Allura: need an enormous favor

Allura: Coran collapsed – had a heart attack or somthibg and I had to go to the hospiral wifh him

Allura: pleas go to the studio, kids r ther

Allura: SHiro?

 

Shiro: on my way

 

* * *

 

It was dark out. The last of the kids exited the studio, gossiping about class or school or some boyband. Shiro didn’t care. He locked up and sat down on the steps leading down into the small parking lot.

He wasn’t supposed to teach today. He did Tuesday and Thursday and picked up random classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday when Allura really needed help or someone scheduled private lessons. He had really needed the rest today. He had been sick the entire weekend, the tail end of some stomach bug, and teaching for the last few hours made him feel faint and queasy all over again.

He pulled his phone out and saw Allura’s name on a collection of alerts. Texts, calls, voice messages. She should’ve known he wouldn’t pick up, but god, Coran was in the hospital. She couldn’t have been thinking straight.

He dialed her number and she picked up before the first ring could finish.

“Hey, how are you holding up.” His voice was raspy and he knew it.

“Oh god, Shiro, you sound horrible. I’m so sorry for making you get to the studio. We just… we can’t afford to cancel class.” She sounded no better than him. Her foreign lilt retained a frantic edge that set his nerves to icy panic.

“Is everything okay with you? Or, I mean, Coran?”

“Yes, yes. He’s okay but unconscious. They say it’s probably just stress and lifestyle.” He heard her sigh, long and strained. “He started playing at that fancy restaurant downtown again.”

“You mean Vrepit? Sal’s place? They treat their employees like shit, I thought he quit last month.” Coran was a great pianist and he deserved to make more than minimum wage under a man that continually criticized him. The last straw was when he started talking about Allura after she picked Coran up one time. When she had told Shiro what Sal said, he wanted to go kill the man. Coran wasn’t as hot-blooded. He simply quit.

Allura sighed again. “Supposedly he’s better. He apologized relentlessly and begged Coran to come back. All their wealthiest regulars love him. He’s paying him double with full benefits, but only if he works full-time which of course he started doing… He knows we need the extra income but it’s going to kill him, Shiro.”

“Listen, as soon as you texted I contacted Lance. He’s going to play for class through the end of the month. His hours are cheap since he’s so young and inexperienced and he’s going to lower them even more because it’s us.” He hesitated. “You should consider hiring him permanently.”

He could _feel_ Allura messaging her temples. “We can’t ask him to do that. You know he’d use it as an excuse to stay when school starts again.”

“Allura, you know we don’t have a lot of choices. And it’s not our fault if we keep him here, you know that.”

A pause.

“Can you just come pick me up?”

“Yeah. Yeah I can. I’ll be right there.”

 

He drove over and dragged Allura away from Coran’s hospital room. She needed rest and Coran would be fine. She needed rest but he knew that wasn’t all she wanted and he let her have her way.

He didn’t take her home. He brought her to his apartment, knowing her unspoken wishes like he usually did. They barely made it up the stairs before she caught his wrist and pulled at his collar so that his mouth reached hers.

Right outside his door. They made it to right outside his door but Allura wouldn’t let them go another foot, not until she suffused the desperate need she used to cope with overwhelming stress, just a little bit.

Shiro knew this game. He knew his lips on hers, her hands on his arms and back and neck and chest. He knew the firm press of her body, close enough that clothes were irrelevant because they felt every plane of each other anyway.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But it was. And he let it be because he wanted this more than anything, if not in this way.

She spent the night and he cradled her body and her worries in his bed until dawn, feeling sick the entire time in his stomach and in his conscience. He couldn’t have made her leave. Not now. It would break her and he took advantage of that and hated himself.

It had started years ago. They were dance majors in college, unassuming and ambitious. They were friends. And then they started this studio together, with savings and dreams. Five years. It took five years for them to realize that their students were always going to be mediocre and they would never find the real glory of performance again. It took them five years to realize that no matter how much effort and time they put forth, their studio would be the same and they would be left just as unfulfilled. They sacrificed their lives, they joked, for very little.

Too long without a date, without even a one-night-stand and they started toeing a dangerous line. It was like on tv where young friends promised to marry each other if neither of them had found someone by the time they turned forty, except it was “come over if you don’t get a date this weekend” and then “hold me, it’s been such a long time.”

Of course they couldn’t stay in the safe realm of game night and cuddling. They were too lonely. Allura took their situation gracefully, excusing it as necessity, something good for both of them. Shiro knew just how fucked he was when he started dreaming about her when she couldn’t share his bed.

They stopped asking each other if they had met anyone recently. They started assuming that all weekends were at Shiro’s. It was the exception to the rule when they weren’t, and that’s the only time one had to contact the other for a change in plans.

The students had always asked Shiro and Allura if they were married. That’s just what kids did when they saw two adults who were close enough to run a business together. Shiro never blamed them for the deep sadness that blossomed at such questions.

He asked her once. Just once.

“Allura…” he held her bony hands in his as they lay in his bed, lights off, window open. The stars were bright that night, for a city sky. “What if we just keep this? Isn’t this enough?”

She had looked so sad. He blue eyes glowed in the dark, reflecting more light as they watered. “We deserve better, Shiro. We deserve a choice.”

He never let her know that he had already chosen. He couldn’t bear to hear what she would say back. And so his life revolved around this incredibly talented, beautiful woman that he could have in body but not in heart.

The next morning, they went to the studio together. They taught like they didn’t wake up in each other’s arms and laugh at the morning news over breakfast. They learned how to keep up appearances a long time ago – a good chunk of Allura’s wardrobe lived in his closet and she had a duplicate makeup and toiletries bag sitting on his bathroom counter.

Coran knew, but if it bothered him he didn’t show it. Lance, though. Oh lance.

Shiro and Allura loved the kid. He was ridiculous and could lift their spirits even on bills-day. But he was so oblivious. He flirted with both of them with the unbridled joy of a kid looking upon adulthood. It was different with people his age, he flirted like he _might_ have a chance and acted according to reactions. But with them, he just let loose all his thoughts and propositions because, Shiro thought, he knew they were so off limits. He wondered if he would still do so if he knew about their odd relationship.

The way he treated that new boy, though. That was a side of Lance that Shiro hadn’t seen in a long time.

Every once in a while, Lance did something unexpected. He stayed quiet. He watched from afar and spoke sparingly, with a light flush and a soft voice. It was like he was scared and enchanted all at once. Shiro hoped that, for once, this ended well. He’d seen Lance fall apart at the hands of high school crushes, seen Hunk and Pidge pick up the pieces.

He and Lance weren’t so different, Shiro supposed. They both deserved something real.

* * *

 

Keith was kind of a dork. Lance couldn’t believe he hadn’t hung out with friends _since high school_. The more they talked, the more it showed. It was like the guy was holding back. Lance knew he and Hunk were hardly the chillest people to be around, with the screaming and the teasing and the obscure references and the…. everything about them. Keith wasn’t uncomfortable, he didn’t think, but he seemed unsure of his very presence sometimes.

Lance was so embarrassed when Hunk made it seem like he had been working up the courage to ask Keith over. Keith didn’t seem to notice the insinuations there. Good, because that wasn’t the case at all. Lance just kept forgetting. As he stared at the smaller boy’s taut back and thighs for an hour and a half three times a week.

Okay, so maybe he was working up the courage a little bit. But after spending more than a second outside of the studio with him, it was obvious that that boy needed some friends, not a creepy lech asking him to crawl in bed with him. And if there was anything Lance was good at, it was being friendly. Even if that sometimes looked a little lecherous from the outside.

Keith was so cute, sitting on his couch, in his clothes, playing his video games. He was stupidly good at smash.

“I um. Used to play competitively a little.” He confessed after a few rounds of kicking everyone’s ass and eventually beating a fucking level 50 Kirby amiibo.

“Um, how much is a little you fucking pro??” Lance shouted. He had a hard time losing and wasn’t afraid to admit it. Well, if admitting means complaining.

Keith played sonic most of the night. Asshole.

“Usually I main Sheik, so don’t even be mad.” He chuckled at them after another win. The laughter looked good on him. Crinkled eyes and charmingly jagged teeth. Lance had vowed to make it happen as much as possible when he saw Keith laughing at his stunt in class that day. That’s what friends do.

Hunk yawned and grunted. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beat. Allura was a hard ass after your performance, Lance.”

Keith agreed and complained. “It sure is easy to incur her wrath when you won’t be the one suffering the consequences.” That was snark! He was settling!

“Yeah but you loved it, I saw both of you laugh.”

Hunk grinned. “Yeah, yeah. But now my calves are crying for rest. So I’m gonna crash on this couch like right now. Go chill in your room, Lance.”

Lance was going to kill Hunk. First day with the new boy and he’s making him stay in his room.

He led Keith back into the hallway. As always, he felt his spirits drag a little as he walked past his abuelita’s door. It had been a while, but he couldn’t bring himself to clean it out. Or go in it at all, really. If his parents and siblings decided to care, they could come pick apart her home.

His own room wasn’t anything special, but like the rest of the house he liked to think it had character. Pale blue carpet, the kind you’d only find in a house furnished in the 80s, with darker blue walls that you could hardly see because they were covered in everything from video game and movie posters to playboy cutouts. His personal favorite cluster of decoration was the birthday card graveyard.

“Wow, I knew you were a nerd but I didn’t know you were this big of one.”

Lance supposed it was fair to say but… “Don’t make fun of me, at least I diversify.” He loved this room more than the one he grew up in at his parent’s house. It was a perfect culmination of all his interests and the major events from his life. Every scrap of paper was made of _him_.

Keith sat delicately on the edge of Lance’s bed. He was so pretty. Not just when he smiled, but now too. Eyes wide, lips in a slight pout, eyebrows thick and drawn. He looked like this when he read in the studio. Lance had decided it was his thinking face.

“What, no comeback?”

Keith looked at him with those big, violet eyes and he had to struggle to breath for a second. _It’s okay. Friends can think their friends have eyes like galaxies._ “No… Just… why did you invite me over?”

Lance’s t-shirt and shorts looked so big on him then. He was just a kid, small and confused, for a second.

“Because,” Lance sat next to him on the navy and teal quilted bedspread. “I thought it would be fun. Who wouldn’t want to cozy up with the newest, most mysterious, horrible ballet student.”

Brows shot down into annoyance. “I don’t even know what part of that to be mad at!”

“Come on! No one knows you or why you’re taking class. Pidge thinks you’re a spy from the Galra studio downtown, pretending to be really bad so you remain inconspicuous. I say no one can pretend that hard.” A rolling laugh slips out with the last sentence, and Lance means every word.

Keith couldn’t blend in with the sea of modestly talented kids with his technique any more than Hunk could with his size. All the pre-teen girls had been cloistered under Allura’s wing and preened into obedient little learners since grade school. If not naturally talented, they were forced to develop quick eyes and feet, sharp lines and decent timing.

And they all loved Lance. His pick-up lines worked best on those too short to ride, as was the gracious humor of the universe. But that meant the gaggle of them treated him as their brother, boyfriend, and best friend all rolled into one.

And they were just as confused about Keith as he was.

“Lance, why is that _boy_ here?” they had asked him a couple days ago, after Keith went home. Lance had run to the convenience store to pick up snacks to fuel their gossip time, so the girls were talking with cheeto dust all over their faces. He wouldn’t trade these moments for anything in the world.

He didn’t pass them napkins. Allura was furious when she caught them with orange fingerprints all over their tights but Lance relished the beautiful combination of cheeto smears with Swan Lake. “I don’t know, ladies. Maybe he realized that ballet was his one true passion.”

“He should pick something else,” Nyma crinkled her nose. She had taken at the studio since pre-school, when he, Pidge, and Hunk were just finishing elementary school and picked on the girls relentlessly. She proposed to Lance once. Her brother Rolo had threatened to beat him up for either answer. “His toes don’t even point all the way.”

Pidge had just finished her private lesson and came over to steal a bag of chips. “Hey, your toes used to stick straight out. You didn’t even try to point them,” she teased. Nyma pouted. “But you know what I think about him. Spy or alien. Take your pick.”

Lance laid back on the floor, as disgusting as it was, covered in scuffs from shoes and blood, sweat, and tears from the natural life of a dancer. “He’s gotta have a reason. No one just _takes_ ballet out of the blue. Especially if they’ve never taken dance classes before.”

That was then, when Lance had talked to him for no more than a few minutes. They were nurturing a budding friendship now, curtesy of Lance’s uncontrollable charisma. It was time to hear the boy’s motive.

“I just wanted a change of pace I guess.”

Lance peered into his face, back to its pensive state. He was so much closer now, they were just inches apart on his bed. His eyes, even deeper and more saturated up close, were framed with thick black lashes. _Sigh_. Those with good brows have eyelashes that follow.

He decided to push his luck. He’d gotten Keith to speak that night more than he had all month and he wasn’t going to give up now.

“A change of pace from what?” Those eyes pinned him down again, piercing and unwavering.

They weren’t confident or impassioned eyes. They were curious. Asking questions his throat never opened to. Lance saw him – he was observant despite what people thought about his attention span. He saw him consider his words carefully and say more with his face and body than he ever did with his mouth. Now Lance guessed he was wondering why Lance was asking him this in the first place and how much he should give away.

Lance tried to look back with encouragement, which he succeeded at to a degree. “Um, nothing much. Work. College. I was getting a little bored. And Allura was offering classical ballet for so cheap. Before I knew it, I had torn down a flyer outside of my apartment and called the number listed.”

Lance was a little surprised. “That’s pretty impulsive.” The action didn’t match those calm, calculating eyes looking at him now. Thinking back, though, they weren’t like that when they met. They were hard, demanding. This boy… this boy confused Lance.

Keith stood up and stretched his back and arms and _oh god_ Lance could see muscle shifting even beneath his shirt draped over the smaller boy. Ballet did things to a body. Strengthened and lengthened. Shiro and Allura were testaments to the magic, beautifying lifestyle. But Keith looked lean and toned _now_. He looked fit that day sitting on the steps in front of the studio.

Hunk didn’t know him from sports in school, so that wasn’t his secret. Maybe he was just a gym monkey?

Keith smirked. “That’s what they call me. They guys I work with hate it, say it’s bad for the general safety of the worksite. And humankind.”

Lance saw the bait, he suspected unintentionally flaunted, and snapped down hard. “Ha. Where do you work?”

Keith looked good from below. Where he stood, Lance could see the delicate cut of his jaw, the wisps of hair that stuck out from his neck, beneath his ponytail. “I do odd jobs in construction. It’s laborious and the guys are dicks sometimes, but it pays really well.”

So that’s where the muscles came from. Not practiced movement, but real, applied strength. It came from just doing his job. He could imagine Keith lugging steel beams and wooden planks, passing power tools above his head with arms stronger than Lance’s entire body. Lance was glad he was sitting, or his knees would be a little weak.

Friends can think about friends’ muscles, right?

Keith fished his phone out of his pocket – _Lance’s_ pocket – and quietly swore. “It’s a lot later than I thought.” Lance looked at his own phone. _2:34_. Wow, violent battle via Nintendo really made time fly. “Do you mind if I crash for the night? I have to get over to the site by 8.”

Lance made face. “That’s disgusting. I could never have that job.” He was not a morning person. “But yeah, you can crash in here with me. The other couch in the living room is too small.”

He tossed Keith a pillow and retrieved an armful of quilts from a closet in the hallway. “Sorry I don’t have another bedlike surface, you’re going to have to do with abuelita’s quilts and my floor.”

Keith took them without hesitation. “No, that’s cool. I grew up doing this a lot. I’m just sorry I’ll have to sneak out so early. I hope I don’t wake you up.”

His makeshift pallet looked pretty decent, built with whatever practice Keith claimed to have. Lance still had a split second to invite him into bed, like his dick had been screaming at him to do all month. He forcefully pushed the thought away _. Don’t be a creep._

He slid into bed alone. “Goodnight Keith,” he whispered playfully, hand on the lamp beside him.

Keith muttered goodnight back. One click and they were submerged in darkness. Lance had trouble sleeping knowing the sculpted boy with nightsky eyes laid just a foot down and away.

 

* * *

 

 “Your boyfriend left you a love letter.” Hunk said from the stovetop as Lance emerged from the hallway. He didn’t move any faster, sleep’s loving embrace still holding down his brain and body. “What?” he yawned as he opened the fridge to get to the chocolate milk.

It was when he closed the door that the note swung into view at eye level. It was when he closed the door that he saw.

_Thanks for the fun night._

_I know you won’t be back in to play for class anymore but maybe we can hang out again? If you want?_

_Here’s my number: …_

The note on Lance’s fridge, written on the pink heart post-its he kept for grocery lists and reminders, made his heart stop.

It wasn’t weird to do this. Leave a note if you left early in the morning from a sleepover. But this felt more like the aftermath of a one-night-stand. And Hunk felt it too.

“I can’t believe you didn’t have his number yet. _I_ have his number already. And I don’t even like him like you do.”

It was too early for this bullshit. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Hunk gave him the most exasperated look. “Okay, okay. Do this denial thing or whatever. Whenever you decide to come to your senses, let me know.”

Hunk was Lance’s confidant. His counselor. His wingman. He always knew who Lance liked before Lance did and tried his best to score him numbers, dates, and second chances. Key word tried. Lance hadn’t dated since high school, if you can call fooling around with most of the orchestra dating. It was a weird time. He told himself it was for self-discovery, at least he didn’t think he was straight anymore, but the memories of bad kisses and sloppy blowjobs at all-state still made him feel like he needed to wash his mouth out.

But Hunk was wrong this time. Keith was just a very attractive boy that he needed to wrangle back into the world of young twenty somethings. The way he was now he sounded like a lonely thirty five year old bachelor.

“Oh yeah, I uncovered Keith’s secret identity.”

“Yeah?” Hunk perked up as he slid bacon and chilequiles onto two plates already set on the table. He seriously needed to get in a kitchen, this methodical culinary genius. “And??”

“He’s a disturbingly normal guy. Works in construction. Goes to college somewhere around here. Decided to take ballet on a whim.”

The chilequiles were amazing. Lance still remembered his abuelita teaching Hunk all of Lance’s favorite recipes when they visited as kids. Every Saturday before Lance had moved here, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge would ride their bikes to this house and listen to stories, eat good food, and play games. Lance couldn’t stand missing those Saturdays, he even skipped out on the eighth grade dance to come here.

“That’s so weird.” Hunk shook his head and mumbled in between bites. “I’m still banking on extraterrestrial. Pidge convinced me. That’s his poorly planned cover story.”

“Nah, I think he’s telling the truth, Hunk. He’s just a normal guy, if a bit boring. His parents must be proud. No basement leech or drug addict for them. That’s all you can really ask for, right?”

“Watch it Lance, you’re starting to sound like my dad.”

After Hunk went home ( _“Sorry, finals are coming up. You know how I hate Principles of Chemistry.” “Go get em tiger”_ ) Lance typed Keith’s number into his phone, with his usual flare. Not a single name was left without at least two emoji in his contacts.

Then the texting.

_Hey, thanks for leaving your number. We should hang out again soon._

Too formal.

_yoooooooo Keithy boi_

Yes okay, that’s better. Just thank him for the note and send it away.

_thanks for the number ;9_

Perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate the interest ppl have expressed!! It makes posting things for the first time a lot less stressful. I hope this fic will live up to expectations *thumbs up*

**Author's Note:**

> p.s. this is my first ever posted writing p l s b e g e n t l e


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